News Desk
The Minister of Power, Adebayo Adelabu, has explained the cause of the national grid collapse, which resulted in the general power outage nationwide in the early hours of Thursday.
The minister, in a statement issued on Thursday, linked the grid collapse to a fire outbreak at the Kainji/Jebba line, adding that the inferno has been totally put off.
He clarified: “At 00:35Hrs this morning, a fire outbreak with an explosion sound was observed on Kainji/Jebba 330kV line 2 (Cct K2J) blue phase CVT & Blue phase line Isolator of Kainji/Jebba 330kV line1 was observed burning.
“This led to sharp drops in frequency from 50.29Hz to 49.67 Hz at 0:35:06Hrs with Jebba generation loss of 356.63MW. Kainji started dropping load from 451.45 MW at 00:35:07Hrs to zero.
“At 00:41Hrs frequency dropped further from 49.37 Hz to 48.41 Hz resulting in system collapse of the grid. We are on top of the situation and speedy restoration is in progress.
“The fire has been fully arrested and over half of the connections are now up and the rest will be fully restored in no time. My sincere appreciation to those who responded or expressed concern via different channels and the team of Engineers for their prompt response to the situation and the work done so far.
“Let’s get the restoration work completed as soon as possible. The delay in the update was deliberate, so as not to cause panic and to also be able to update on the progress of remedial actions taken so far. This is to ensure economic and security saboteurs don’t take advantage of every situation reported”, Adelabu added.
At about 12:40 a.m reports indicated that the national electricity grid completely collapsed, causing widespread power shortages across the country.
The Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) in a statement by the GM, Public Affairs, Ndidi Mbah, listed areas in the country that had so far experienced restoration of power supply including West, North Central, South, East, and a large portion of the Northern parts.
She clarified: “The power supply restoration is sequel to the total grid collapse, which occurred at about 12.35 am, this morning, causing outage nationwide, after over 421 days of consistent grid stability.
“In the course of the grid restoration, the process initially suffered a setback; this does not amount to another collapse. In the course of any grid restoration process, challenges may be encountered. This happened today while the grid restoration was in progress, but it was promptly addressed”, the spokesperson added.
Techrectory with AFP News
